


Kismet

by panpipe



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panpipe/pseuds/panpipe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino meets Ohno on a train and follows him home. The true tale of how they fall in love. (Written for Cycle 9 of jentfic_remix @ livejournal.com.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kismet

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Serenity](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/11859) by aeslis. 



There isn't a house three stories tall, or a butler and five maids, nor are there angel statues in the bathroom--but Ohno does take Nino home that night, and his mother does make them ramen.  
  
  
  
Nino is twenty years old, and he doesn't understand why people get so mad when he lies. It's not like he is stealing money, or stealing passwords, or stealing pension funds, or starting pyramid schemes. It's simple stuff, like saying "I'm a struggling artist" as he plays his guitar in the subway. It pays for his lunch the next day; why does it matter if he could have paid for it anyway?  
  
Ohno is twenty-two and still lives with his mother. Not that Nino knows that at first, because if he had, he wouldn't have convinced Ohno he needed a place to stay that night.  
  
Nino sees Ohno staring at his neck, as if he wants to devour him, like those vampires in True Blood, and thinks, that would be nice. So Nino smiles, and is coy, and might have said something on how he didn't have enough money to pay for food until his next paycheck. Ohno invites him home, as Nino knew he would, and introduces him to his mother, as Nino had not fucking known would happen.  
  
  
"Why, you're skin and bones," she says as they enter the house. "Don't worry, Satoshi already texted and told me everything." She pinches his cheek. "You poor dear. Where is your mother?"  
  
His mother lives 15 minutes by train from Nino's apartment, and would have gladly made him ramen for free as well, but now that he is in Ohno's house--Ohno's _mother's_ house, Jesus Christ--he is unable to say the truth. So he lies.  
  
  
Again.  
  
"Oh, she lives in Chiba," he says, thinking of his friend Aiba and looking as morose as he can. Which isn't hard. He had really thought he would get laid tonight.  
  
"You poor dear," she says again, and guides him to the table where two steaming bowls of ramen await.  
  
  
Nino spends the night. They let him sleep in Ohno's sister's room, which has been empty since she got married and moved out. The bathtub is small, the towels are rough, and he barely has enough room to himself to think about how badly he fucked up this plan. He wakes up at exactly seven in the morning and excuses himself with a note on the fridge saying thank you.  
  
He leaves no number.  
  
  
Nino's Wednesday classes are from four to six-thirty in the evening each week, and it takes him exactly nineteen minutes to walk from his classroom to the train station. Which is to say that he is always on the same train line at exactly the same time. He doesn't have many friends at the university so he usually walks alone, and he has no friends because he's never cared to associate much with people he doesn't like.  
  
And Nino hates almost everyone, except Aiba, who mostly studies chemistry, and Sho, who is so busy preparing for the presentation of his Master's thesis on the contributions of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and Western capitalism to the financial crises of Asia that Nino barely sees him once a month if he's lucky. Neither are in his Wednesday night class.  
  
MatsuJun is a year younger than Nino and thinks the world revolves around him, which is why he can't seem to grasp that _Nino doesn't fucking like him_. Which means that if Nino doesn't duck out of class quick enough, he has to spend the whole nineteen minute walk to the station together with the idiot, and then five of the ten minute train ride with him as well before the two go their separate ways.  
  
  
Nino is not lucky today.  
  
"Wait up, Nino," he says, gasping a little for breath as he runs to catch up with him.  
  
When did I give him permission to call me Nino? Nino thinks, irritated. He conjures up his most soul-destroying glare, but as usual, MatsuJun is unfazed. They board the train in not-so-companionable discourse, until they are interrupted at the next stop by a loud yelp, followed by "Nino!"  
  
  
Nino looks up, grateful to be distracted from MatsuJun's endless babble about the latest fashion trends in Europe and their impact to the Japanese market (Really, how did Sho convince him that he should take The Economics of Fashion as his upper-division economics class?) until he realizes who owns that particular voice.  
  
Ohno.  
  
"Shit," he says, ducking into his hoodie.  
  
"What?" MatsuJun asks, startled by the change in his behavior.  
  
It is really Nino's most unlucky day, because Ohno chooses to sit _right fucking next to him_.  
  
  
"Are you eating well?" he asks, a furrow on his brow suggesting he has been concerned for Nino since their last meeting.  
  
Shit.  
  
"I'm fine, um, MatsuJun and I have been grabbing dinner together after class," he says, another lie piling on top of all the others.  
  
"Wait, we what? I hav--"  
  
Nino digs his elbow into MatsuJun's forearm, and he thankfully takes the hint.  
  
"Yes, that's right," MatsuJun concurs, wincing and rubbing his arm, glancing wildly between the two.  
  
His expression as he looks at Ohno is slightly predatory, the same way he eyed Aiba that one time Nino had run into MatsuJun on campus, and Nino's eyes begin to glaze over with a surge of protectiveness towards the one night stand he never had.  
  
"That's good," Ohno says in an even voice, a low hum of relief in his voice, and Nino would have blushed up to his ears if he ever blushed. Thank God he didn't.  
  
As it turns out MatsuJun and Ohno share the same stop, because the two stand at roughly the same time to leave the train. As if that isn't disastrous enough (Who knows what MatsuJun might say once Nino is out of sight?), Ohno glances back at Nino, and something passes across his expression, gone almost as quickly as it came. Quickly, before the doors close, Ohno grabs Nino's hand, and with a Sharpie (seriously? Does this man carry Sharpies around? Who does that?) writes a number on his palm. "If you ever need anything," he says, straightening the lapel on his blazer as he heads out of the train car.  
  
Nino looks at his palm, and then stares at Ohno's face as the train pulls away. There is a quirk to his lips, a ghost of a smile. _An invitation_ , the dangerous part of his mind whispers.  
  
"Shit," he says again.  
  
  
MatsuJun texts him later that night, and for the umpteenth time Nino wonders when he ever gave him his number. The message is short and to the point:

> U should hit that. He's totally into u.

"Shit," he says, once more with feeling.  
  
  
See, the real story is that the next night, Nino invites Ohno to his apartment, with a text message telling him he doesn't have enough money for groceries, can Ohno pick up the ingredients for some quick ramen? And when Ohno gets there, somehow not only the shoes are off in the doorway but so are Ohno's suit jacket and the dress shirt underneath, and in the midst of it all Nino is telling him everything, that he isn't starving, that his mother lives _so close to him that it drives him fucking crazy_ , that he's always had a thing for salary men, and that he won't lie again if Ohno will just stick with him, please, just don't fucking leave him.  
  
Ohno laughs in the midst of a kiss, right after he says the last bit, and says, "I don't think you can promise me that"--another kiss, a smile so gentle and small it seems like a secret between the two of them--"but I would sure love to see you try."


End file.
